bloodyrosemccoy | Entries tagged with scaryass movies

Index and Prologue!

Previous Chapter!

Hooray, an on-time update!

It feels a little weird to add a ✨Paypal link, ✨ but hey, writing is hard, so if you want to tip me, I wouldn't say no!

CW for body horror and self-sacrifice (in a movie)

I'm not going to expand on the issues Zarla mentioned in the last chapter. She's got superpowers, but they're not really relevant to this particular story. Though she does come up in others!
Somehow relevant to this chapter is the song "Belle" from Disney's Beauty & the Beast, where Belle really wants to talk about cool books and stories but nobody else cares. Belle's attempted infodumps really resonated with me. DREEDO'S GONNA GET THE TOWNSFOLK DISCUSSING MOVIES IF IT KILLS HIM
Many thanks to my buddy Fade for consultation on ADHD medication. Giro's brain is a complicated labyrinth.
The running courgette joke is a running gag for my own dislike of zucchini, which, if you ask me, can go fuck itself, but which I am assured other people enjoy. Those people are weird.
One time in college I happened across a TV edit of Ridley Scott's Hannibal, and it was the funniest thing ever. I mean, okay, that movie's pretty ridiculous anyway, but Ray Liotta kept his frat-bro hat on all throughout That One Scene, and it was completely unintelligible.
As a Utahn, I actually had a few friends who swore by CleanFlicks, or would have, if any of them swore. I can totally understand the appeal of getting a movie that won't trigger an upset, but on the other hand I've had some really good mind-blowing feelings when I've gone out of my comfort zone before. The tale of my discovery of horror through Alien is a long saga, and it also includes Ridley Scott, so shoutout to Ridley Scott, I guess.

---

Zevon, we have a problem with PQ896.

What do you mean? The study's over. It was a wild success.

I've been going back over the questionnaires, and have noted a discrepancy.

The two that reported adverse reactions had handwriting that didn't match the signatures of the guardians at the bottom.

So what?

So it appears that in those two cases, the subjects themselves filled out their questionnaires, whereas in the others, the parents filled them out.

This error in our protocol has led to differing reports. It's possible that many more subjects had adverse reactions, but they were not recognized as adverse by the parents.

I would like to do post-study interviews of the other subjects.

Bel, we've closed this. It's over. We're moving on to PQ now.

Yes, but new findings have come to light. It is possible the other patients are experiencing similar problems. E06 reported myoclonic jerks, disrupted sleep patterns, lethargy, drowsiness, mood swings, nightmares, ataxia, vertigo. The implants need further refinement.

The parents are reporting satisfactory results. I'd say we've done our job.

That depends on what our job is.

Look, if you want to refine it, you're always welcome to submit a new proposal. But this is a done deal, Bel.

Sorry.

Let's focus on CN12.

( Giro was watching a video on his rigged A/V system when I returned to his hideout the next evening. )

Next Chapter!

I had never seen Hereditary, so I decided to watch it last night! I live-tweeted i on Twitter and on Bluesky (live-skeeted?), but tl;dr I enjoyed it immensely! It was especially fun dorking out over the Utah scenery!

I just don't understand people in horror movies who walk into horrific tableaux, like, for example, ( a shocking and spoilery scene; tw gore and child death ) and immediately start screaming actual bloody murder. Wouldn't it take you a moment to process it, to put together what sequence of events led to this moment of Bad News? Or maybe that's me. Is it the autism?

Speaking of autism, I wound up especially intrigued by the Creepy Girl.Creepy Children in horror movies always fascinate me. They're written and directed to seem neurodivergent, and as a late-diagnosed ND person I gotta say, it's kind of a revelation that ND mannerisms default to creepy for writers and directors. I mean, I've had to learn to read NT body language, so I can also understand that the flat affect and weird stims/tics* and special interests and stilted, developmentally skewed language come across and confusing--I just never notice when I'm doing it MYSELF.

I did think it was funny that in this movie the Calamitous Horror Disaster was a direct result of the worried mom pressuring her ND kid to Go Out And Socialize Like A NORMAL Kid, Jeez. I'm waiting for the Scream franchise to add that to the list of Horror Movie Rules: along with Don't Go To Irresponsible Teenage Sex Parties and Don't Drive While High, you gotta put Don't Pressure Your ND Kid To Act Neurotypical.

Anyway, I used to be impatient with demon-type movies because I thought they implied that Christianity was true in the movie universe, and my grumpy atheist ass has Issues with Biblical worldbuilding. But then I realized that these movies only posit that demons are real, just disembodied malevolent entities all floatin' around randomly terrorizing hapless dumbasses, and religion might have evolved as humans' attempt to gain some semblance of control of the monsters. I mean, look at human responses to other disasters--plague, famine, pestilience, natural disasters, predators, trauma, abuse, and neurodivergence! It makes sense that a cult would pop up trying to bargain with this! Poor, confused humans just trying to make sense of a confusing universe. That's what horror is all about, Charlie Brown!

FUN STORY: When my sister was tiny, she was sitting in her car seat munching on a box of croutons as a snack, and she dangled the box out the open window. The croutons got blown out of her hand and she dramatically screamed, "MY CROUTONS!" as they flew away. That was my first thought when That Scene happened.

We also tell a story about how my sister, in her car seat, screamed bloody murder for no apparent reason. There was a beat. Then a little gasp, and she cried out in the inexplicable Southern accent she had as a toddler, "I scared myself!"

Given these two incidents, I consider this movie to be the Little Sister Car Seat Special.

*Dammit, what is that click sound she makes called? I'm fairly sure it's a retroflex click, but the internet is cagey about clicks for some reason.

So, Five Nights at Freddy's is over.

And you guys, it's kind of embarrassing to say this, but I feel a bit wrung out.

Seriously, I'm going to miss these characters. Last time I got Stockholm syndrome THIS bad about a video game bad guy, it was GLaDOS.

You get closure in the last one--good or bad, depending on how you play it--and I wouldn't have thought that I'd need closure on a game that started out seeming to be nothing but spooky jump scares. But that's the cool thing--the games had a simple enough mechanic on the surface: just stay alive. A lot of people who were unimpressed by it just saw this surface feature (see: the Honest Trailer for FNAF2), and yeah, that does get old fast.

But the REAL game--the thing that really pulled you in--was figuring out the story. Sure, you could just spend a few hours giving your limbic system a nice workout avoiding getting startled by monstrous robots. Or, if you dug deeper, you could piece together a whole sad, strange ghost story spanning decades. And while the jump scares are fun, the true excitement for me came from figuring out that story--even if I, specifically, was reduced to combing through YouTube videos to get it because actually playing it was TOO GODDAMN TERRIFYING. Such an experience of immersion, of emotional involvement, is rare, so we need to celebrate it when it comes along.*

And really, it's a brilliant way to show off what video games can do. You can become so involved in the mysteries behind the game that you got some real brain exercise--and that's a feeling that can't be beat. We love solving mysteries, and this was a good one.

Plus, watching YouTubers curling up into a ball when grinning haunted robots came screeching at them was, admittedly, pretty entertaining.

FUN FACT: I actually own Five Nights at Freddy's on Steam, despite the fact that, when I bought it, I was pretty sure I was never actually going to play it. At that point I'd had so much fun just watching other people play it and studying the mystery that I felt like I still owed it to Scott Cawthon to toss some cash his way just for making something so enjoyable.

*Speaking of which, if you're sick of hype, enjoy the Nostalgia Critic's discussion of hype that gets out of hand, which explains a lot about backlash. I would add that the backlash also comes from the people who AREN'T completely enchanted by something who are tired of being left out and could respond with backlash. Hell, I was underwhelmed by The Dark Knight, and it was difficult not to be rude about it when people were gushing. So I guess what I'm saying is, if you're sick of hearing about Five Nights at Freddy's (or Frozen), um ... sorry? Hopefully time will settle them out as classics, but meanwhile I say let us have our excitement.

Current Mood: Peet's Pride of the Port
Current Music: Nostalgia Critic

AW YEAH WE'RE DOIN' THIS SOME MORE

I really like this series, y'all. Something about the mystery is really fascinating to piece together. And watching people scream at each other about their theories is entertaining, too.

Current Mood: Republic of Tea's Safari Sunset
Current Music: Markiplier - Five Nights At Freddy's 3

I am sitting here wrapped in my space blanket, writing, drinking cider, and watching a Serbian movie called Killer Mermaid. Livin' the good life.

Current Mood: spiced cider
Current Music: KILLER MERMAID

THEY'RE BACK

What I Learned Since The Summer Solstice:

childthursday really exists! AND SHE IS AWESOME

SO IS HER WIFE

Piano dissassembly is an undertaking fraught with peril, what with the large number of wires under high tension.

African wild dogs have gorgeous coats.

The cilantro wars are a bit one-sided: 90% of people can't taste the particular aldehydes that mimic bleach (read: POISON)

Fifty Shades of Grey is even more awful than I thought, so that not even a good sporking can make me an antifan.

The first regular African-American character in a Saturday morning cartoon show was Valerie from Josie and the Pussycats.

While I love watching horror movies, playing horror games is apparently one degree too close for my fragile amygdala.

But, as it turns out, I love watching horror game playthroughs by other people.

It is upsetting when the deserts of Southern Utah have a layer of green over them.

There is a Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago!

Even if they have much higher mass, sub-brown dwarf stars are generally roughly the same radius as Jupiter, due to complicated interactions of various pressure factors.

THERE IS SUCH A THING AS A CANDY BAR STUFFED WITH CAKE MIX

Astronauts do drop stuff all over the place when they come back from a stint in space. (As somebody said, "NOBODY GIVE HIM A BABY.")

T-rex's puny arms were still attached to tons of muscle and could probably take you apart pretty easily.

Amercan police departments have somehow turned into terrifying supervillain organizations.

Terrifying, racist supervillain organizations.

It's important to get the correct generic brand of your Fukitol unless you want to enjoy days of simulating life on a pirate ship.

The Tinker Bell movies actually might have better messages than the books, what with the way Tinker Bell herself is a straight-up mechanical engineer in the movies, rather than a "pots-and-pans-talent fairy" of the books. Dude, she can be girly AND an engineer!

I apparently do very well teaching toward gifted kids, and less well teaching toward other kids. I tend to forget that not everyone can keep up. STORY OF MY LIFE.

There are varying categories of anemia depending on how the shortage of hemoglobin comes about--either impaired production, increased destruction, or straight blood loss.

The water level of the Chicago River is lower than that of Lake Michigan and has to be kept that way with harbor locks, because of some big engineering stunt to reverse the flow of the river back in the day. THE TRIUMPH OF MAN!

I still love point'n'click games.

There are tons of extremely interesting methods of alternative construction available if one wants to, say, build a cost-effective eco-friendly hobbit hole at some point.

The most intriguing of which seems to be earth-sheltered building at the moment. HMMMM ...

What I Learned Since The Winter Solstice

The Cooking Hypothesis suggests that the invention of cooking precipitated a rapid evolutionary change in humans, allowing them to more efficiently process nutrients and, of course, growing bigger brains. I always said cooking was an important part of humanity, dangit!

Nancy Kerrigan was filmed right after being attacked sobbing and asking "Why? Why?"--and a lot of people thought she was being a wimp or a drama queen because she was only bruised. Dude, it still hurts, but quite apart from that, when you get attacked, it's probably TERRIFYING and it HURTS YOUR FEELINGS.

The difference between triple axels, triple spins, triple lutzes, etc., has to do with where you push off from and what direction you're facing and okay fine I've already forgotten.

Flavoring sodas is a lot like brewing tea. Really sugary tea.

But brown sugar makes them taste rather bitter.

Also, soda-brewing is similar to making beer, except you don't let the yeast go far enough to make alcohol.

Furthermore, there is a lot of argument over just what the "cream" in "cream soda" refers to. Vanilla? Adding cream to the soda? Or cream of tartar? It's a HISTORY MYSTERY.

In tangentially-related soda discoveries, SodaStream is a company fraught with political tensions and controversy.

Cloth pads and panty liners are surprisingly expensive, but also surprisingly worth it.

There is a constellation in the Southern Hemisphere called "The Poop." Yes, it refers to a ship's stern (poop deck), BUT STILL. HURRRR.

There are, naturally, all sorts of recipes for Ent-Draught on the internet.

Mainlining Atop The Fourth Wall has taught me something I always rather thought: I have terrible comic-reading comprehension. I do okay with some, mostly in comic strip form, but it takes me a long time to parse each page, way longer than it takes to read straight prose, so if I'm going to read a comic, I have to be committed. And even then I have trouble regarding them critically.*

I did learn, however, that lots of people find it extremely difficult to keep comic continuity straight. Comic writers, for instance. Case in point: Donna Troy.

The director of Tremors is Ron Underwood, who got his start in the film industry making educational shorts for Barr Films--such as one of my favorite Rifftrax-featured shorts, Library World.

My mom, who watched very little TV as a kid, nevertheless has strong opinions about what Mr. Peabody's voice sounds like.

Mork & Mindy was a spinoff of Happy Days. Clearly, I never watched either of them.

Getting feedback on your novel can be a mixed bag. You get excited that you can make it better, but frustrated when you can't tell if the feedback makes sense.

Publishing a serial story online gets more difficult with each installment because there's a lot to keep track of. BUT DAMMIT IT'S STILL POSSIBLE.

You can unclog standard drain clogs with the use of science fair volcano technology.

After you turn into the left-turn-lane, it's legal to drive 500 freaking feet in that lane. Which is almost a whole block even here in Salt Lake City.

The Beautiful Creatures movie might be adapted from a novel of the same name, but don't let that fool you. It is clearly a remake of The Touch of Satan.

The first female-directed movie ever to gross more than $1 billion is Frozen. Which is awesome, but dang, it took a while to get there. Let's hope this is a good precedent!

*Interestingly, though, I read a lot of Archie comics as a kid. It fascinated me the same way 1950s Educational Shorts fascinate me--it shows some weird whitebread cultural ideal that somehow I can't look away from.

Current Mood: Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
Current Music: bad horror movies

Finally caved in to Netflix's insistence and watched Hemlock Grove. Turns out I'm glad I did because HOLY SHIT y'all this show is fucking BONKERS.

It's hard to decide which thing is more entertaining--is it the crazy special-effects eyeballs-falling-out gloopiness of the transformation into a werewolf? Is it the inexplicable 8-foot-tall glow-in-the-dark one-bug-eyed Frankenstein's monster girl with a heart of gold, keen intellect, and anachronistic vocabulary? Is it Famke Janssen auditioning for Bad English Accent Theater's version of Morticia Addams? Is it the mad scientist with inexplicable super strength? Is it the symbolism that's about as subtle as a Nathaniel Hawthorne novel? Or is it the way everyone pronounces "vargulf" like "Wahrwilf"?

Okay, yeah, it's definitely that last one.

Seriously, this show. I am DYING to see what they do next season.

Current Mood: Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

What I Learned Since The Summer Solstice

It was totally the gallbladder, y'all.

Doctors are totally just making up estimated recovery times for surgeries.

The worst part about recovering from surgery is how it fucks up your brain.

When your iPod breaks down and forces you to back up its entire library, it may be foreshadowing.

Edgar Rice Burroughs didn't just write about Mars; he also wrote about all the other planets. Guy was MANIC.

The ghost in Mama, who gets a bad rap for its unconvincing CG, is in fact for the most part played by Javier Botet, an actual guy with a terrible debilitating congenital disease called Marfan Syndrome. I have to hand it to Botet for making a miserable situation work for him. "Disease," he says, "It is not you who owns me; it is I who own you."

Paul Verhoeven's entire commentary track for Starship Troopers consists of him and Edward Neumeier exasperatedly pointing out that the message of the film is "Nazis are bad"--something Verhoeven, growing up in the Netherlands during WWII, was personally aware of. But apparently the only part of that thesis critics heard was "NAZIS!" * At least it made for an entertaining commentary.

Boötes is supposed to represent a herdsman. It always looked like a kite to me.

My name, "Amelia," was the #1 name for baby girls in the UK in 2011. I strongly suspect that this fresh crop of little Amelias is a direct result of Doctor Who.

You can collect tokens at national parks and historic sites and things! HOLY SHIT Y'ALL ROAD TRIP VIDEO GAME.

Ebay purchases can be supremely entertaining.

Too much enthusiasm for CrossFit can make your muscles melt and your kidneys explode and then you die. The irony is palpable.

Before Super Mario Bros. 2 was famously not a Super Mario title, it was actually being developed as ... a Super Mario Bros. title. I guess it didn't pan out. And then it did.

That baffling -ject morpheme that shows up in so many words and that I've always meant to look up is from the Latin word iaciō, meaning "throw" or "cast."

"Augie's Great Municipal Band," that fun song during the parade at the end of The Phantom Menace, is a bouncy, upbeat version of the Emperor's terrifying theme song. Which is actually kind of awesome.

Anesthesia, man. It's WHACK.

French cliticizes its pronouns, which is both far less dirty and far more interesting to me than it might sound.

For weird legal reasons, Idaho owns the top 39 feet of Jackson Lake, which is apparently a thing you can do.

Fishing vests are the way to go, man.

Book lice are not actually lice, nor do they feed exclusively on books, which I found out when a few of them showed up to chew on a secretly moldy basket in my bathroom. Little creeps.

The main character in H. Beam Piper's Little Fuzzy is a bit more Sam Elliott than his reboot counterpart, and that is also pretty awesome.

There is an actual linguistic term for Talking Like Donald Duck. It is called buccal speech, on account of the air is in your cheeks, not your larynx, when you do it.**

I now know how to identify a barn swallow!

Bookstores categorically hate self-published writers.

Colorful umbrellas are apparently an intolerable challenge to the masculinity of male pheasants. Female pheasants, of course, could not care less about the umbrellas.

Those individual servings of cake-inna-mug you can make with standard cake mix and a microwave are DELICIOUS.

Breaded fish is better than battered when you are making fish and chips.

*Which is ridiculous. Well, the whole movie is ridiculous, but I can't believe anyone would miss the sarcasm dripping off its propaganda reels.

**Assuming you can do it. I sure as hell can't get any phonemes out except for some kind of lateral fricative. Clarence Nash was a goddamn genius.

Current Mood: Pumpkin Spice
Current Music: Bonnie Raitt ~ Something To Talk About

WHAT THE--oh, you SONS OF MITCH, Universal. "Hey, want to watch the DVD commentary on this movie? WELL YOU CAN'T because this is a RENTAL COPY and even though you're PAYING for this rental service you aren't paying enough so FUCK YOU."

Now, I am totally fine with the concept of Super Better Edition DVDs. Hell, I own a box set of the insanely over-extended Lord of the Rings films, even though I already owned all the theatrical cuts, because, you know, LotR. And while I own a box set of the original flavor Star Wars trilogy, I would totally shell out more money if they ever came out with the ORIGINAL original flavor--you know, the one where Han Shot First and Wedge is fist-bumping Ewoks and Sebastian Shaw plays a far more convincing Ghost Of Anakin Skywalker than Pout Woodblock ever did--because, well, this is a sentence I do not actually need to finish. I am completely willing to hand over more dollars so that these features can sit permanently on my shelf.

HOWEVER, making it so that those features aren't available to rent if someone DOESN'T have the shelf-space--even though they're already PAYING for a rental service--that is NOT THE SAME. And if your film's "rental copy" DVD actually includes the Bonus Menus, where you can select an audio commentary and hit Play before receiving a snotty note telling you to go out and buy your own damn copy of the DVD, I am not inclined to shell out money for it. I am, however, WAY more inclined to HATE YOU.

To use an old meme that still applies, Universal: Marketing. YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

Speaking of old memes, it would be no more insulting if hitting Play simply took you to a video of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up." At least then they'd be acknowledging that they're being jackasses.

Current Mood: Safari Sunset
Current Music: NOT THE AUDIO COMMENTARY TO "MAMA"

The last few times Dad and I have been on our own, we've spent the evenings watching the All-Westerns Channel. This time around, we changed things up a bit.

DAD: I think I have run out of westerns. Let's watch something else! Here, I've got the AppleTV all set up. Let's watch a preview and decide on a movie.

2 hours later

ME: You know, it says something about us that we can spend two hours being entertained by nothing but previews.

Finally we picked an actual movie. Unfortunately, it was The Europa Report.

ME: Maybe we should have stuck with the previews.

While he and I share many preferences for movies--we both like science fiction movies, and blockbusters, and Coen Brothers productions, and previews--in other ways we have wildly diverging tastes. I like horror movies, while Dad feels that, complex academic and psychological theories about subconscious fears and hindbrains be damned, anyone who watches horror movies is unequivocally a bad person.* For his part, he likes stupid rom-coms and pretentious French movies.

DAD: I think I'll watch some French cinema tonight. Want to join me?

ME: Are there explosions?

DAD: No, but there are other great things! They love slapstick, but then right in the middle they'll all pause and comment on the unbearable loneliness of living, and the ever-present specter of ennui that looms over even the most lighthearted of moments. Then somebody gets his head stuck in a paint bucket. It's like the Three Existentialist Stooges!

ME: ... Yeah, you have fun with that.

So for movies, we mostly went our own ways. Fortunately, we got to spend Quality Time on other projects--such as supervising thunderstorms. The Thunder Switch was on the whole time Mom was gone, and every time another shower started up, Dad would have to go outside to observe.

DAD: I think it's going to rain some more!

ME: So it is.

5 minutes later

DAD: Now it's raining!

ME: Why, yes.

DAD: I'm going out to see!

Then he would walk outside and stand under the eaves, listening to the rain.

DAD: It's still raining!

ME: Keep me updated!

When it wasn't raining, I also continued my attempts to skate.

ME: I really enjoy the feeling of getting better at this.

DAD: That cerebellum is a wonderful thing.

ME: Although we are an entertaining species, considering that we have decided to take that as a challenge. "So, you think you've learned to balance on two feet, do you? Well, what about if I PUT WHEELS ON THEM? WHAT NOW, MOTHERFUCKER?"

Other activities included making and then canceling surgeries (total flake patient in one instance, and in another a patient who called in sick), cooking, and gnawing on vague anxieties caused by the alienation of modern life or half-remembered traumatic experiences or most likely fucked-up brain chemistry (there is a reason he likes the French movies).

ME: Are you having another existential crisis?

DAD: No, it's the same one. It's pretty much perpetual.

ME: Well, all right then. Want to go watch some previews?

My only regret was that he'd already seen John Carter; that would've been a fun one to watch with him. I guess I'll have to figure out a similar movie for the next time we hang out, just me and my dad.

*Okay, I laughed it off when he said it, but later it occurred to me that it kind of hurt my feelings. You don't hear me telling him that the Doris Day movies he loves, which as far as I am concerned are grosser than Slither and infinitely less funny, make him a bad person. And anyway, fuckin' Mister Rogers liked Night of the Living Dead, so YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID.

... Come to think of it, my sister and I inherited our love of bad horror from our paternal grandmother, which may or may not explain a lot about Dad's attitude toward horror.

Current Mood: Orange Blossom White
Current Music: Tom Petty ~ A Higher Place

The Basics: They went looking for stuff. And then they were surprised when they found it.

You Are About To Read A Comment About Framing Devices. Here It Comes: Europa Report runs into another trap in the mockumentary genre I claim to like so much: over-framing. The movie feels like a really long first act, with a lot of inexplicably nonlinear storytelling, crazily over-edited camera shots, and redundant narration. You know, that voiceover giving you really USEFUL information. "You're about to see a bunch of footage from the Europa mission. Here it is now. The footage, I mean. So this is the footage we were watching, too. And now you're watching it. About a trip. To Europa."

Even the exciting climax, in which ( that one thing happens, ) is immediately dulled by their ground crew PR lady helpfully summarizing what we just saw.

It would be like the buildup in the original Alien being twice as long, and then John Hurt decides to stick his face in a giant alien egg, and the facehugger springs out and gets all violatey and then--we cut to some Weyland or Yutani telling the camera, "In that fateful moment, John Hurt totally stuck his face in an alien egg zone, and then a big ugly thing jumped out and attached itself to his helmet. Boy, that sure scared us when we watched the footage! Anyway, movie's over." And then the credits roll, leaving you wondering where the rest of the story went. It was disappointing, is what I'm saying.

Robot Roll Call: It felt rather like one of any dozen 50's sci-fi B-movies featured on MST3k. Right down to the international crew's roll call. That made me laugh.

A Thing I Liked: The science was cool, though. I especially liked that the characters never turned into the hysterical idiots you usually find in these movies. They were Doing Science, dangit, and they were professionals. So refreshing.

Another Thing I Liked: There's a part when ( another thing happens. ) That was pretty excellent. But then nobody mentions it again and it doesn't really build from there, and that is disappointing.

An Actor I Liked: It's good to see the Ice Truck Killer getting work. (An ENTIRE PLANET of ice! IT IS LIKE HEAVEN!) He has a really interesting face.

Overall: I was hoping for more.

ALSO: Not even Mind-Blowing Genre-Defying Indie Movies are immune from basic movie rules. Never show anyone a photo of your loved ones back home. Unless you're feeling suicidal.

Current Mood: Blackberry Sage
Current Music: America ~ The Border

Dad finally worked up the nerve to watch Prometheus. That movie gets more absurd every time I watch it.

Dad, however, was determined to Figure It Out. I told him my theory about the Engineers,* which is moot because I'm still not convinced that this was, in fact, an Alien movie. Dad decided that the other movies make a lot more sense when you realize that the xenomorphs are engineered bioweapons. We further figured that they had all SORTS of fun things going on in those goo-canisters, although for the life of us we can't figure out what the point of the glop that makes one guy disintegrate into mold while the girlfriend he had sex with C-sections out a squiddy little Just Plain Hugger would be.

The upshot, though, is that now he wants to watch the other Alien movies, so we caught Aliens last night. And possible Prometheus subtexts aside, watching Forklift Ripley vs. Alien Queen is always time well-spent.

*Namely, that not all of them see eye-to-eye. See, the guy at the beginning "seeded" our planet or whatever with human DNA in direct defiance of his buddies, who were not so keen on having another intelligent race who might challenge them. You know. LIKE PROMETHEUS DID. So he was all for creating humanity, and they ... were less interested and decided to wipe us out. I have no idea why it took them so long to get their shit together. Physics?

Current Mood: Ginger Peach
Current Music: Basia ~ New Day For You

I think the problem with Grave Encounters 2--you know, aside from the hyperdimensional feedback loop of meta self-congratulatory nonsense--was the genre-savviness. You can totally make genre-savvy horror characters work. I mean, I'm genre-savvy, but I don't go around following horror-movie rules because, as far as I know, I'm not actually in a horror movie. If your characters don't know they're in a horror movie until it's too late, they can be as familiar with the tropes as they want and it won't matter.

Not so much here. The whole premise of Grave Encounters 2 is that the first one is a movie, and then the sequel's main character becomes convinced that it's real. And if you become convinced that time-manipulating ghostmonsters who can trap your ass forever in an asylum of gibbering ghouls and hands growing out of ceilings and ectoplasmic sucker punches are REAL, you STAY AWAY FROM THAT ASYLUM. If you're working on the assumption that it's real, the movie shows you a primer of all the various ways you are irrevocably doomed if you get anywhere near that place. So you don't go near it. That's logic.

Still love the first one, though. Gotta give me my love of good solid silly horror.

Although the main character looked enough like Robert Pattinson that I spent most of the time entertaining myself imagining Edward Cullen gibbering and screaming as demonghosts chase him around. That would've been a fun addition to Twilight.

Current Mood: Russian Rose Caravan

Went to see Mama this weekend with my buddies Kate and Matt. Aside from having a great time talking Liberry Talk (Kate still works there), it was interesting to note that it was my first time watching a horror movie on the big screen.

For some reason, horror movies specifically seem like the kind you watch on a little screen, with headphones. I devour them, but generally on my computer, late at night,* which is a great idea because it's a good way to suddenly haunt your house. I much prefer watching movies that way in general, because that way I can control the volume or turn on subtitles or pause them so I can go to the bathroom or go back and rewatch the silly parts.** Also, I can do other things while I'm watching, such as create conlang words or make bracelets or something.

So I had to warn Kate'n'Matt that I am not much for theaters, and my immersion in Mystery Science Theater 3000 means that I have to remind myself that my concept of theater manners might not be the same as other people's. Fortunately, this audience agreed with me, and was quite willing to holler at the screen. If you're gonna watch a movie like that with other people, by god it should be social.

It worked, too. Kate'n'Matt have decided that they need more MST3k in their lives. They are coming over Friday to sample some. Little do they know the evangelical storm that is about to be released upon them. Now I've just got to figure out which host to start them on.

Also, to fix my darn disc drive. But hey, at least the MST movie's on Netflix Instaplay. That's always a good one to start.

*At least, that's how I used to do it, before the spindle on my DVD drive disintegrated. Now when I use DVDs I'm having to improvise with an external USB drive. It doesn't work very well.

**I swear I made Grave Encounters twice as long as its actual runtime doing that. It's not a GREAT movie, but it had me shivering and also giggling idiotically through pretty much the whole thing. Along with Paranormal Activity, it is my go-to haunted house movie.

Current Mood: Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

Watchin' Prometheus again. I love how the ARCHAEOLOGISTS are all spine-chillingly spooked by the fact that everyone at their extraterrestrial ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG SITE is totally dead. It's like walking into the Great Pyramid and being shocked to find that "THIS IS JUST ANOTHER TOMB!" Yes. Yes, it is.

If they're disappointed and creeped out by dead people and civilizations, maybe they should pick another line of work. They are shitty enough at science that they make Indiana Jones look like the height of careful proceduralism. Maybe they could get work as a demolition squad instead. They seem to be really good at that.

The movie's not bad, but I have to say I still haven't decided if it's an Alien movie. Mostly because I was disappointed with the explanation of the Space Jockey. The vague ideas I had in my head were a lot cooler.

Anyway. If you want a hilarious blow-by-blow recap, go check out

cleolinda's Prometheus in 15 minutes. And don't worry. She thinks they're terrible scientists, too!

ETA: ... And an hour and a half into the movie somebody finally utters the line "I wouldn't touch that if I were you." Maybe somebody should've said that BEFORE the terrible space explorers decided to take off their containment suits, the terrible self-serving CEO lady installed a custom medical kit that has never heard of so-called "women," the terrible archaeologists breathed and sweated and stomped and knowing these guys probably pooped all over the site, the terrible forensic surgeon exploded her sample, and the terrible biologist decided his first response to a newly discovered alien life form is not to observe it, but to jam his finger down its throat. WHY START NOW?

Current Mood: Peet's Holiday Blend
Current Music: Prometheus

And now, for some reason, we're watching Alien: Resurrection.

RIPLEY 7: K ... k ... ill ... me ...

RIPLEY 8: *FLAMES ON THE SIDE OF EVERYONE'S FACE*

RON PERLMAN: Must be a chick thing.

MY SISTER: Great line. Seriously, Ron? What, like she's on the rag?

*pause*

ME: Shit, that's a frightening thought.

MY SISTER: Oh, JESUS, you're RIGHT.

ME: THERE GOES ANOTHER PAIR OF PANTS

MY SISTER: GAME OVER, MAN

ME: THE AGONY

MY SISTER: I DISSOLVED ANOTHER TAMPON

ME: THE PLUMBING IS ON FIRE

MY SISTER: GIMME THAT FLAMETHROWER SO THAT I MAY DO MYSELF IN

ME: K ... ILL ... ME ...

MY SISTER: ... yeah, that would be a legitimate reason to call it 'the curse.'

ME: I am not even going to think about what this means for the womb-having Alien Queen Brad Dourif was blathering on about.

MY SISTER: Yeah, massive hull breach. Leave them in space for a while, and the whole alien problem pretty much solves itself.

Current Mood: Yin Hao Jasmine
Current Music: Alien: Resurrection, for some reason

MY SISTER while watching Paranormal Activity 3: Maybe the demon just really hates cameras. His antics only start up when the cameras are going.

DEMON: *levitating sheet trick! WHOOMPF! TA-DA!*

ME: Wait a second. Performing tricks? Only plays to the camera? This guy's AUDITIONING!

MY SISTER: What's he want, a chance on Penn & Teller: Fool Us?

ME: He might have more fun being featured on Bullshit.

A Conversation The Cops Must Have Had Ten Minutes After The Closing Shot Of Bereavement

"… anyway, sir, the fire marshal says there's absolutely no way of knowing how this fire that burned down the house with everyone inside got started."

"Did he check for point of origin?"

"Nah. He just said there ought to be a law about those flammable pajamas."

"Too bad they didn't call in time."

"Dispatch said they did call, but the girl wouldn't give the name or address. She just kept screaming 'OH GOD HE'S CRAZY PUT DOWN THE OH GOD OW OW ARGH' and then she hung up."

"What's with the teenagers these days? No respect for authority. Still and all, it's a damn shame. Child-sized body bags are always a tragic sight. And a whole family … Hey, that little bag isn't closed all the way."

"Well, we couldn't get the zipper over the meat-cleaver embedded in the girl's skull."

"Mmm. Terrible accident. Well, who's for breakfast? I could go for a waffle down at the Charcoal Diner, maybe a chat with that waitress whatsername … Melissa? Megan?"

"Sir, she disappeared last week. Remember? Last seen in the parking lot, just before the old van with SUTTER'S MEATS clearly emblazoned on the side pulled out?"

"Oh, right. Sutter's Meats … why does that sound familiar?"

"The Martin Bristol case? The Sutter's Meats van was seen pulling away down the street five years ago when that boy was abducted."

"Oh, yeah, no wonder it was ringing a bell. Any leads on that case?"

"Absolutely none, sir. Incidentally, the whole family was at home during the fire here, but it seems the family car was parked in front of the Sutter's Meats slaughterhouse. Along with a motorcycle belonging to Billy from up the road. His dad said he never came home yesterday."

"Sutter's … Sutter's … is that the place the EPA lady was harping about investigating? Something about how its incinerators are still on despite its having been shut down for years?"

"I think so, sir."

"God, if it's not one thing, it's another … Dodge her if she calls again, willya."

"No problem, sir. She was reported missing two weeks ago."

"Ah, well. Lucky break there."

"Indeed, sir."

"Come to think of it, I haven't seen the elder Mr. Sutter for … oh, about ten years, now. Think he's still around?"

"His son reported him dead, sir, but no death certificate was ever filed."

"Boy, those bureaucrats with their certificates, eh? Well, I think we're mostly done here. What say we head over to the Charcoal Diner anyway? Surely they've got at least one waitress left who knows how to make a decent pot of coffee."

"Sounds good, sir."

"Anything urgent on the agenda after that?"

"I can't think of anything pressing, sir."

"Damn, I love this job. Let's flick on the siren. Sometimes I feel like the only time I ever get to use it is when I'm heading for some waffles! But hey, that's life in a small town for ya."

"I like the blueberry ones best, sir."

FIN

Current Mood: English Breakfast

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The Desert Mermaid

I Am The Boss Princess

Entries tagged with scaryass movies

The Geography of Main Street: Beacon Studios

I Scared Myself

Five Nights Of Stockholm Syndrome

YEAH!

Good Things

OH SHIT

The Life Experience ~ Summer '14

The Life Experience ~ Winter '14

Her Name Is Shelley. Of Course It Is.

The Life Experience ~ Summer '13

The DVD Is "Mama," If You Were Curious

The Abject And The Absurd

The Europa Report Report

And Where Did The Violation Cobra Fit Into Their Plans?

Look What I Found On Netflix!

Movie Manners

That's Not A FACEhugger; That's Just A HUGGER

And I Thought Mine Were Bad

Nobody Tell Him They've Been Cancelled

Pretty Much All The Spoilers, If You Care